Leviticus 7:8

And the priest that offereth any man's burnt offering,.... In which the flesh was wholly burnt, and nothing of it remained to requite the priest for his trouble, as in other offerings: even the

And the priest that offereth any man's burnt offering, even the priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered. The priest shall have to himself the skin.

Leviticus 7:8 And the priest that offereth any man’ s burnt offering, [even] the priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered.Ver. 8. The priest shall have to himself.] It is a sign of gasping devotion when men are so straithanded to their ministers, who should have part of all.

(8) The priest shall have to himself the skin.—As the skin was the only part not consumed by the fire, in the case of the burnt offering, it fell to the share of the officiating priest. According to the rule which obtained during the second Temple, all the skins of the most holy things belonged to the officiating priests—i.e., those of the trespass offering, the sin offerings of the laity, &c.—whereas those of the holy things—i.e., those of the peace offerings—belonged to the owners of the victims. These skins, which accumulated during the week, the priests whose course it was to serve divided between them every Sabbath evening.

Verse 8. The priest shall have to himself the skin] Bishop Patrick supposes that this right of the priest to the skin commenced with the offering of Adam, "for it is probable," says he, "that Adam himself offered the first sacrifice, and had the skin given him by God to make garments for him and his wife; in conformity to which the priests ever after had the skin of the whole burnt-offerings for their portion, which was a custom among the Gentiles as well as the Jews, who gave the skins of their sacrifices to their priests, when they were not burnt with the sacrifices, as in some sin-offerings they were among the Jews, see Leviticus 4:11. And they employed them to a superstitious use, by lying upon them in their temples, in hopes to have future things revealed to them in their dreams. Of this we have a proof in Virgil, AEn. lib. vii., ver. 86-95. "-------------huc dona sacerdos Cum tulit, et caesarum ovium sub nocte silenti Pellibus incubuit stratis, somnosque petivit; Multa modus simulncra videt volitantia miris, Et varias audit voces, fruiturque deorum Colloquio, atque imis Acheronta affatur Avernis. Hic et tum pater ipse petens responsa Latinus Centum lanigeras mactabat rite bidentes, Atque harum effultus tergo stratisque jacebat Velleribus. Subita ex alto vox reddita luco est." First, on the fleeces of the slaughter'd sheep By night the sacred priest dissolves in sleep, When in a train, before his slumbering eye, Thin airy forms and wondrous visions fly. He calls the powers who guard the infernal floods, And talks, inspired, familiar with the gods. To this dread oracle the prince withdrew, And first a hundred sheep the monarch slew; Then on their fleeces lay; and from the wood He heard, distinct, these accents of the god. -PITT. The same superstition, practised precisely in the same way and for the same purposes, prevail to the present day in the Highlands of Scotland, as the reader may see from the following note of Sir Walter Scott, in his Lady of the Lake: - "The Highlanders of Scotland, like all rude people, had various superstitious modes of inquiring into futurity. One of the most noted was the togharm. A person was wrapped up in the skin of a newly-slain bullock, and deposited beside a water-fall, or at the bottom of a precipice, or in some other strange, wild, and unusual situation, where the scenery around him suggested nothing but objects of horror. In this situation he revolved in his mind the question proposed; and whatever was impressed upon him by his exalted imagination, passed for the inspiration of the disembodied spirits who haunt these desolate recesses.

8. The rule that the skin of the Burnt-Offering belongs to the priest who offers it is extended in the Mishna to the skins of the ‘most holy,’ i.e. the Sin- and Guilt-Offerings. Perhaps this is implied in Leviticus 7:7. We gather from Zebaḥ ?im 103 b (Tal. Bab.) that the skin of the Peace-Offering belonged to the offerer. It is doubtful whether the skin of a priest’s Burnt-Offering is here included: after the analogy of the priestly minḥ ?ah (Leviticus 6:23) the whole of a priest’s sacrifice must be burnt.

The skin of the burnt offering - It is most likely that the skins of the sin-offering and the trespass-offering also fell to the lot of the officiating priest.

8. The skin of the burnt offering — This was a perquisite of the priest, to be kept or sold at his pleasure.